WEIRDLAND

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Reese on Ellen´s video clips

Reese Witherspoon Dunk Tanks Audience Member! on Ellen's Show:

The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2009-03-27)
Reese Witherspoon's Interview!

The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2009-03-27)
Reese Witherspoon Dunk Tanks Audience Member!

"First, the actor playing Mike Newton is PRETTIER THAN ALL OF THE VAMPIRES PUT TOGETHER. Seriously, Bella, why did you not hit that? I couldn't figure out where I'd seen him before. (Looks it up.) Holy crud, he was mini-Jack! If that doesn't make you awesome, nothing will. This kid blew me away on Stargate. He had all the mannerisms pitch-perfect. I want to see more from Michael Welch". Source: darkfrog24.livejournal.com

"When Stephanie visited the set, she blogged back to her fans that you can really dance. So does that mean you’re going to audition for the next big dance movie?

I do like to dance. But I doubt that anyone will be hiring me to do it professionally in the near future. Stephanie’s assessment of my prom boogy stylings was very kind. But the truth is, anyone can dance. The big secret is to just hit the beat. You can do whatever you want in between beats, doesn’t matter. Just make sure you’re on top of the 2-4, or in the case of salsa, the 1-2-3, and you’ll be just fine.

Coming from fans of literature, is there any character from a book that you’d like to be cast as if it was turned into a film?

How old is the kid from Hatchet? He was like 17, right? Hatchet was my favorite book as a kid (until I read James and the Giant Peach). I’d love to play the main character in that, if I’m age appropriate. This kid gets stranded in the wilderness because of a plane crash and has to survive on his own. Sounds like a blast to me!

The scene in the diner, with Mike dancing outside the window… improv or scripted? Were you encouraged to improve or did you have to stick straight to the script?

There was a lot of improve in this film for the humans (Eric, Tyler, Angela, Jessica, and Me). Catherine didn’t really care whether dialogue or actions were improvised or scripted, or whether ideas came from her or the cast. Her priority was to create something real, empathetic, and entertaining for the audience. She always had respect for OUR role in the overall story, and our purpose in Bella’s life. And having made several movies on the subject, Catherine has a lot of experience in trying to capture the essence of teenagers.

In the case of the diner, the process went like this… The script said something like, “Mike waves and calls out, trying to get Bella’s attention.” Catherine showed me where this will take place, suggested a couple of ideas, and ultimately left it up to me to come up with something that works. I thought of that dance (for whatever reason), showed her, and she approved. Later in post-production, she had me come into a sound studio to record some various, “Bow chicka WOW wow. WOO WOOO!” whacky noises. She picks one of three choices, and there you have it. Mike Newton in all his goofy glory, dancing for the affections of Bella". Source: www.touchedbytwilight.net

Reese likes a good communicator

"Settling back in her chair, Witherspoon proves an engaging subject. She is dressed in a simple black top and blue jeans and (I'm reliably informed) sports a swanky new hairdo. She is refreshingly candid - it's a trait she values, saying that she likes a man to be "honest, candid, a good communicator" - although she does questions about her current beau with a very straight bat.

"He's not in the movie, so I can't really talk about him," she coos, citing the actor's equivalent of the fifth amendment. Witherspoon, it appears, is also keenly intelligent. She grew up a self-proclaimed "book dork" and certainly seems to have forged her career path with a craftswoman's precision.

She was born Laura Jean Reese Witherspoon in New Orleans, and spent her formative years in Germany, where her father did his military service, before the family settled in Nashville, Tennessee. The Witherspoon family itself boasts a rare pedigree - one of her Scottish forefathers, John Witherspoon, became president of Princeton University and signed the original Declaration of Independence - and Laura Jean was raised in a quiet, conservative enclave.

"My upbringing was kind of old-fashioned," she concedes, "that's how I grew up, hence I've always thought that while you have to let your children be individuals, you have to set boundaries."

Her first film role came with 1991's romantic drama The Man In The Moon, the last film shot by To Kill A Mockingbird's Robert Mulligan, in which she played a 14-year-old tomboy who falls in love with her older teenage neighbour. The young starlet won unilateral praise, her co-stars naming her "Little Meryl". Indeed, so tenacious was she in her pursuit of her dreams, that Witherspoon's parents dubbed her Little Miss Type A.

Type A is now the name of her production company, which has already enjoyed success with Legally Blonde 2: Red, White And Blonde (2003), Penelope (2006) and Four Christmases (2008). "It's funny, that Little Miss Type A thing does conjure up an image of a total control freak," she muses, "but I really wouldn't say that's me. I am a go-getter type of girl, though, but it's probably been motivated by fear more than anything. Anyway, nowadays, I have to be a go for it' kind of girl. If you are a separated woman with children, you don't really have any other option."

And how does she feel about being touted as the most powerful woman in Hollywood? "I don't really know what that means," she offers. "Now, though, I do feel more confident - I have much less doubt - and that helps me in my daily life and in my work. For me, especially in this film, I want to find characters that I think are really strong and speak to young women.

"I admire a lot of people who manage to have great careers and have a family life and then have also kept their feet on the ground. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were a great inspiration. There are people who do great things with celebrity and create opportunities for other people who really need it."

These are not hollow platitudes: Witherspoon herself has been involved in children's and women's advocacy organisations, serving on the board of the Children's Defence Fund, She was also named global ambassador of Avon Products in 2007, for whose foundation she served as honorary chair. Doesn't she ever feel a little too exposed?

"You hope that the tabloid things will go away," she smiles. "Sometimes I feel like a 49-foot woman. I go places where I see people whispering and pushing their children toward me to take pictures or look cute in front of me. I know what that feels like, a little bit. But I would not say it is a detriment. This career has afforded me a lot of great things in my life and I am very lucky and blessed to have everything I do. I want to carry on making good movies." Source: www.sundayherald.com

Saturday, March 28, 2009

3 million "Twilight" DVDs on first day

"TWILIGHT, which was released in theatres on November 21, 2008, grossed $69.6 million domestically in its first weekend and to date had grossed nearly $380 million worldwide. No surprises here: Teen girls lined up en masse to take Robert Pattinson home with them when the Twilight DVD went on sale Saturday, complete with midnight release parties. The romantic vampire sensation, which has grossed $380 million in theaters since its November release, sold more than 3 million copies in its first day on the shelves, studio Summit Entertainment says".
Source: www.hollywoodinsider.ew.com

Domestic = $191,397,304
Foreign = $184,868,115
Worldwide = $376,265,419

Here is a press release from Summit:
Los Angeles, CA March 22, 2009 – Summit Entertainment announced today that the home entertainment release of the studio’s action-packed, modern day vampire love story TWILIGHT sold over 3 million DVD units in its first day of release. The DVD launch commenced this past Saturday morning at midnight with nationwide events during which time Summit and its retail partners provided TWILIGHT fans with the chance to celebrate the DVD release of the film. “TWILIGHT at Midnight” allowed participating retailers the opportunity to stay open late as fans lined up in impressive numbers to purchase the DVD of the epic romance at midnight parties.

Thousands of TWILIGHT fans across the nation participated in the “TWILIGHT at Midnight” event and some were surprised by filmmaker and cast appearances. 2,500 fans attended in Salt Lake City to see Rachelle Lefevre who plays Victoria; 2,000 showed up in Los Angeles to see Ashley Greene who plays Alice Cullen; over 1,000 fans came out to see director Catherine Hardwicke in Dallas; 700 fans lined up in New York for Edi Gathegi who plays Laurent; and 500 fans in Chicago saw Nikki Reed who plays Rosalie Hale.

With over 3 million DVD units sold, TWILIGHT enters the top five best first day DVD releases over the past two years along with PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END, THE DARK KNIGHT, HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, and TRANSFORMERS.

Summit Entertainment’s Co-Chairmen Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger stated, “The Saturday release in conjunction with the groundbreaking retail events across the country have proven to be overwhelmingly successful which in turn benefited TWILIGHT fans as well as our retail partners. Home Entertainment President Steve Nickerson, the home entertainment group and the entire family at Summit are to be commended for the conceptualization and execution of this unique approach.”

“We are incredibly appreciative that TWILIGHT fans came out to once again support this film at our midnight events across the nation,” said Steve Nickerson, Summit’s President of Home Entertainment. “With such a successful first day sales, it is apparent that our fans remain passionate about the TWILIGHT SAGA and want to own a piece of the Edward and Bella story they have come to love. We look forward to the continued success for both the home entertainment and retail sales of this property as a whole.”

Watch Video: "Twilight" Interview with Robert Pattinson

Catherine Keener in Genova

Jake Gyllenhaal and Catherine Keener in "Lovely and amazing" (2001).

"This week sees the release of her latest film, Genova, a smaller-scale, more intimate work by British director Michael Winterbottom. It's a story about an Anglo-American family: Colin Firth, a British academic working in the US, and his two daughters (played by The OC's bad girl Willa Holland and a stunningly persuasive 10-year-old newcomer named Perla Haney-Jardine). The family relocates from Chicago to Genova for a summer, to recover from the death of the girls' mother, played by Hope Davis, in a car crash the younger girl believes she caused. Keener plays an old flame of Firth's, who is now teaching at the same university. The film is a mood piece, a movie as much about a city and its light as it is a look at grief - a slow-burning journey through guilt, agony and rage towards acceptance and peace. It has a ghost in it, too.

As with a lot of Winterbottom's work, Genova appears to have been put together without any shooting permits, by a skeleton crew. "Michael works in a very personal way," Keener says of the Blackburn-born director, who will often guide his cameraman by tugging on his shirt from behind. "As for the crew, they were virtually invisible, except for a director of photography and a sound guy. They're just like sherpas, carrying their gear alone and sweating a lot. When I got the crew list, I turned the page over expecting more names, but that was it: 10 names. Spike Jonze works a little in the same way, so you never quite know what you're doing. It shows me you don't need the extra stuff. But it takes a lot of work, sensitivity and preparation - combined with luck. Michael would just pull in extras from the people walking around Genova. I don't think we had permits. We worked on locations and got whatever we could, mostly with available light."

Catherine Keener and Emile Hirsch in "Into the wild" (2007).

She says she feels sisterly towards other women actors her age, and would concur that Hollywood remains ageist and sexist, especially when it comes to big-budget material. Somehow, she has found a niche that avoids these traps. She despairs a bit of the new generation of women coming up: "Everyone seems so frigging young and naive. They had some survey of younger women and they asked them what they aspired to be. The most popular answer was to be the assistant to a movie star - not the movie star, but the assistant!"

Despite her recent forays into the mainstream, Keener is still loyal to the indie directors with whom she first found success. She has made four movies with Nicole Holofcener, including the upcoming Please Give, about life in a New York apartment building; then there's her three with Spike Jonze, including Where the Wild Things Are, out in the US later this year; Charlie Kaufman, who wrote Being John Malkovich, recently cast her as a lead in Synecdoche, New York, released here in May. "Actually," she says, "I think it's them who are incredibly loyal - to me."

After a decade of combining indie movies with more mainstream work, she still remembers the terror of her first big-budget film. "First day on the set for [Steven Soderbergh's] Out of Sight, and all the studio bigwigs showed up to watch the kick-off shot. It was a scene with me, by myself. And there's me, all alone, with people screaming instructions and shit, so I just had to scream inside." She thinks for a moment and says: "Actually, I'm always like that".
Source: www.guardian.co.uk